Meta leads cost $27.66. Google leads cost $70.11. Same year.

Two numbers, the same twelve months, two platforms. The median cost of a lead on Facebook's leads objective was $27.66 (WordStream by LocaliQ, 2025). On Google Search in that same year it was $70.11 (WordStream by LocaliQ, 2025). The gap is real and published (Search Engine Land, 2025), and it is the most misused fact in paid advertising.

Here is what the agency deck leaves out. Both figures are medians of agency-managed accounts in the United States. A median is the middle of somebody else's distribution — half the sample did worse — not a forecast of your account. And "lead" means two different things here. A form completed mid-scroll on Instagram is not the same object as somebody typing "emergency plumber" into Google at nine at night. The cheaper number buys the weaker intent.

Google's cost per lead fell for the first time in five years

The 2026 Google Ads benchmarks cover 13,474 US search campaigns measured between 1 April 2025 and 31 March 2026, with a minimum of 52 active campaigns per subcategory (WordStream by LocaliQ, 2026). Across all industries: click-through rate 6.64%, cost per click $5.42, conversion rate 8.18%, cost per lead $66.69. A year earlier: 6.66%, $5.26, 7.52% and $70.11 (WordStream, 2025).

LocaliQ states that cost per lead decreased overall for the first time in five years (LocaliQ, 2026). Now read the components: they say something the headline does not. The click did not get cheaper: cost per click went up, $5.26 to $5.42. Conversion rate rose from 7.52% to 8.18%. The auction went easy on nobody; landing pages and tracking got better. That decides where your next hour goes — not into bids, into the page the click lands on.

Dentists now pay more on Meta than on Google

"Start with Meta, it is cheaper" holds for most rows and breaks badly in three. Find your category before you accept the rule. Every figure below is a US agency-managed median.

• Dentists: $72.97 a lead on Google (WordStream, 2026) against $76.71 on Meta, where dental cost per click rose 139% and cost per lead rose 97% (WordStream, 2025).
• Physicians and surgeons: $40.04 on Google (WordStream, 2026) against $47.47 on Meta (WordStream, 2025).
• Beauty and personal care: $39.25 on Google (WordStream, 2026) against $51.42 on Meta (WordStream, 2025).
• Restaurants and food, the opposite pole: $30.57 on Google (WordStream, 2026) against $3.16 on Meta at an 18.25% conversion rate, the highest of any category (WordStream, 2025).
• Attorneys and legal services, the widest gap: $131.63 on Google (WordStream, 2026) against $18.17 on Meta (WordStream, 2025).

The legal row is where cost per lead stops being useful alone. A $131.63 search lead and an $18.17 social lead are not the same product; the raw price says nothing until you know your lead-to-customer rate by source. One date check also disqualifies half the decks you will be shown: there is no 2026 edition of the Meta study. It covers 1 April 2024 to 30 June 2025 (WordStream, 2025), so "2026 Facebook benchmarks" means data ending in June 2025 (LocaliQ, 2025).

The badge you were told to chase no longer exists

In eligible US and Canadian categories, Local Services Ads sit above the paid search block, show a profile instead of a headline, and bill per lead rather than per click (Google). In a February 2026 dataset of 888 home-services contractors running 1,774 LSA campaigns with $6.72M of spend and 126,650 leads, blended LSA cost per lead was $53 — Electrical $39, HVAC $51, Plumbing $57 — against $104 blended and $149 non-brand on Google Ads, with cost per paying customer at $233 against $472 (Searchlight Digital, 2026). Where LSA exists in your category it is usually the first campaign, not the third.

Now the part that has quietly dated most published advice. Google has consolidated its badging into a single Google Verified badge and discontinued the Money Back Guarantee; reimbursement is accepted only for services booked before 7 December 2025, and within 30 days of completion (Google). Already-verified advertisers keep the badge automatically and ranking is unaffected. The badge is unavailable for auto, beauty and dining. If your site still sells "Google Guaranteed" as a benefit, rewrite it this week.

Picture a dental clinic with $2,000 a month

Hypothetical, and the arithmetic is the point. The clinic's Google row is $72.97 a lead (WordStream, 2026). Thirty leads is the floor at which a test can be read, so the honest monthly number is about $2,190, before anyone argues about creative. Meta looks like the escape hatch and, in this category, is not: $76.71 (WordStream, 2025). Meta also needs roughly 50 optimization events per ad set per week, measured from the last significant edit; below it the ad set sits in what Meta calls Learning Limited, and creative changes, a new ad and a seven-day pause all reset the clock (Meta). At a $76 lead this clinic cannot fund five ad sets, so it consolidates into one, or optimizes toward a cheaper event such as a message started.

Build order, then. Brand Search first: cheap, and it baselines what people who already know you cost. Non-brand Search second, exact and phrase only, negatives written before launch. Local Services Ads third where eligible — dentists are on Google's category list (Google). One fixed-price first visit as the conversion event, on its own page. One same-day emergency slot campaign, the highest-margin intent in the category. And the policy line that suspends accounts: Google treats health as a sensitive interest category, so its advertisers cannot use advertiser-curated audiences, which rules out customer lists and lookalikes (Google). Uploading a patient list is the most common request clinic owners make. It is a violation.

The kill rules get written before the first click. Nothing is touched below 30 leads or 14 days, because edits reset learning. Anything above twice your category median for seven days at 30-plus leads gets paused. Any campaign whose cost per booked job exceeds your gross margin per job stops entirely — bids cannot fix that. At or below median for two weeks, add 20% budget a week, never a doubling.

What's in the playbook

• Your category's median cost per lead on Google and on Meta, each with its measurement window
• The readiness checklist you finish before launch: profile, landing page, tracking, offer, response
• A two-platform structure in build order, and the budget arithmetic that exits Meta's learning phase
• A 90-day plan in thirteen rows and a kill/scale grid with eight written thresholds
• 14 industry playbooks — hotels, restaurants, health, beauty, general SMB, law, real estate, retail and gyms, automotive, education, events, financial services, home services, wine — each with its cost per lead, five moves, the compliance rule that gets ads disapproved, and a 30-day checklist
• Four prompts for Claude, ChatGPT or Gemini: keywords and negatives, ad copy inside the limits, angles from objections, the weekly review
• 35 pages, 40 numbered sources with every figure linked, and both the English and Spanish PDF in one purchase

Do one thing before you read more advice. Open your own ad on a phone, on mobile data rather than office wifi. Time the page, try to call from it, submit your own form. Most readiness problems are visible in ninety seconds and invisible from a desktop. Paid Ads That Pay is at netwebmedia.com/playbooks, with the Spanish edition in the same purchase.

Questions owners ask

Is Meta really cheaper than Google for leads?

Per raw lead, usually. The median was $27.66 on Facebook's leads objective against $70.11 on Google Search in the same year (WordStream by LocaliQ, 2025). Not everywhere: dentists pay $76.71 on Meta against $72.97 on Google (WordStream by LocaliQ, 2026). Find your own category row before you pick a platform.

Is the Google Guarantee still available?

No. Google consolidated its badging into a single Google Verified badge and discontinued the Money Back Guarantee; reimbursement is accepted only for services booked before 7 December 2025, within 30 days of completion (Google). Already-verified advertisers keep the badge. Auto, beauty and dining are not eligible.

What budget do I need to test properly?

Your category median cost per lead times about thirty leads, the floor at which a test can be read. At the 2026 all-industry Google figure of $66.69 that is roughly $2,000 a month; at the Restaurants figure of $30.57, about $920 (WordStream by LocaliQ, 2026). Narrow the geography before shrinking the test.

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